The Gap Fire

That is what the latest local fire is being called. It started yesterday afternoon around 6pm and is really quite close. The huge fire here last year was on the back side of these mountains. This one is on the front side, our side.This is the view from where I work. I took this picture this morning and it looked like they fire crews were getting things under control. They had 4 planes and 4 helicopters dropping water and phos-chek. If you click on this picture, you can see the red fire retardant that was just dropped. It was pretty cool to watch.
However, this view from Lucy's preschool this afternoon was a bit more troubling. It seemed like the fire was getting bigger, you can see flames if you click on this picture.
And here it is from a different street (they evacuated the folks who live on this ranch).

Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and the fire will remain in forest areas. We are not very close, so we are in no danger. Lets hope that they are able to put it out soon.

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I wish I had a picture of the staging area. It was filled with every type of fire truck you could imagine and media vans with the tall satellite dishes on top. If they are still there tomorrow, I'll take a picture.

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edited to add, the staging area has been moved to a larger location, so I didn't get any pictures. This fire has become the #1 priority in California right now due to its proximity to the city of Goleta. We are still far from the fire. This is a useful map to show the fire's location.